


Take These Broken Wings; Learn How to Fly

by Geritashipper123



Series: Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better) [2]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Blanket Permission, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, I tagged this for graphic violence but its honestly mild, Jim Sulu and Scotty aren't really that important, M/M, Mostly about the McCoys, Non Graphic Suicide Attempt, Overcoming the death of your father, Some Fluff, Suicidal Ideation, bones centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 10:05:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10784649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geritashipper123/pseuds/Geritashipper123
Summary: He's fallen a lot, gotten dragged down. He jumped once.But Leonard McCoy flies, he swears he does





	Take These Broken Wings; Learn How to Fly

**Author's Note:**

> So one of the biggest questions I get about this series is why isn't Leonard Horatio "Bones" "Dammit Jim, I'm A Doctor" McCoy a goddamn doctor.
> 
> Honestly, I wanted to make him a doctor. It's really weird to write him as NOT a doctor.   
> This is my attempt to explain why he isn't
> 
> Dedicated to Leonard McCoy's parents, because god knows they haven't gotten enough love

_ The shuttle was trembling, shaking and all he could do was breathe through it. He closed his eyes for a moment, felt the firm of the seat under his legs and against his back, the seat belt over his shoulder, the way the controls shuddered slightly under his hands. Leonard opened his eyes, took a deep breath. He adjusted their course once more. “Hikaru! How are we holding up?” He barked without looking at his friend. Hikaru shouted back something about getting them out of this storm.  _

_ “I'm working on it, asshole,” Leonard grumbled, clenching his jaw. _

_ They had to get back to the Enterprise. Leonard would make sure they did.  _   
  


* * *

 

_ 5 Years old _

His mamma bought him a toy truck, and he loved riding on it with bear. Daddy would play cops with him, chase him around and try and catch him as he and bear ran from the cops. 

“Come on bear, cops gonna catch us!” He shouted, trying to push the truck faster, “Come on! We’ll get sent to tickle jail!” He clutched today’s score- a bag of Halloween candy- to his chest and ran faster. 

He didn’t hear his daddy calling for him to look out until he and the truck were suddenly pulled downward. 

The drop off wasn’t very far into the woods against their backyard. It’s sudden, and if you’re not paying attention it’s very easy to fall off it. 

As Leonard learns, it isn’t very far down. But for a few precious moments, he swears he was flying. 

He breaks his wrist when he hits the ground, and his father is more reluctant to play cops with him after that. So Leonard plays the cop, chases daddy so he can drag him back home for dinner or because he kidnapped bear. 

He also starts a new game- Jump off the couch into a pile of pillows and see how much airtime he gets. Mamma hates it. Daddy calls it boys being boys.

 

* * *

 

_ He, Hikaru and Scotty, along with Ensign Kalisto and Lieutenant Chapel were assigned to this mission. Christine is badly injured, and they need to get her home. Hikaru and Him both have little girls who need their fathers, and Ensign Kalisto is scheduled for gender reassignment surgery in five months and she’s spent her life working towards that goal.  _

_ Leonard’s sole job is to get them home. He’s the pilot, he has to get them home.  _

_ Jim will kill him if he loses his two best engineers (why they sent both Christine and Hikaru was a mystery), and then kill him again for dying himself. Spock will act completely apathetic if Scotty dies but will also do that whole I-am-above-thou thing that he does when he’s upset and it’s just sad to watch. Nyota will be pissed if he loses the shuttle, and Gaila will kill him for making her have to work with another pilot. _

_ He has to get home. He has to.  _

 

* * *

 

_ 9 years old _

The car had gone flying. 

They’d been driving home from a fishing trip up in the Carolinas. There was this sort of- not a mountain but this really steep road in Chattanooga. They’d been driving, laughing, talking. Leonard was telling his dad about school, describing how to solve fraction problems. His dad had been playing interested. 

The flash was probably a deer, he never found out.

The car went  _ flying.  _

Leonard’s world went black.

He woke up to smoke in his face and pain in his leg. He managed to get the seatbelt off, and then winced when he tried to move. His leg was probably broken- no, it was trapped. He shifted, then yelped when his leg wouldn’t budge. He looked over to the front seat. The airbag had deployed, and his dad was still unconscious. He reached over, managed to grab the older McCoy’s shoulder. He started shaking his dad, frowning when he didn’t make a noise. “Dad?” He asked, shaking him harder “dad, dad wake up. We gotta call the ambulance… Daddy?” he shook him harder “dad? Pa?!” he bit down on his lip. “Dad! Wake up! We gotta go home, Dad!” 

He finally shook him enough that he tilted to one side. His face was bloody, and it left smears of blood on the airbag. His head tilted strangely. 

Leonard swallowed and touched his own neck. Strange, he couldn't turn his head that far to the-

“Dad? Dad, I’m scared.” He whispered, shaking him again. “Dad?” he felt tears welling in his eyes, and sniffed. “Dad,  _ please.  _ It hurts.” His voice cracked on that, and he whimpered. “Dad?”

He sat there, crying. The sun rose, then set again. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get his leg free. He was still crying when a beam of light hit his face. 

“Holy shit- Betty! Call the cops, someone’s alive!”

_ Someone.  _

 

* * *

 

_ One of the turbines keeping them in the air exploded. Hikaru started cursing, and the controls threw themselves to the side. Leonard spat his own curse, and Ensign Kalisto whimpered in the seat next to him, praying. Leonard started pulling on the controls, forcing them back so they weren’t nose diving towards the planet below.  _

_ “Kalisto, ar’ ya gettin’ ta comms?!” Scotty roared from his spot next to Christine, accent thick from stress. She whimpered again, said something like “we’re going to die.”  _

_ “We are not going to die!” Leonard snapped, risking everything to look her in the eye “Listen to me, I  _ will  _ get you back to the ship! You are going to live! you are! I’m going to make sure of it! But if you want to live, we have to get in contact with the ship! Stop thinking about what might happen and act to lower the chances of that happening!” _

 

* * *

 

_ 11 years old _

David McCoy is buried at their church, they name the church library after him. Leonard hates it. 

When his mamma came to the hospital after he was pulled out of the car, she already knew. She was crying when she found him, thanking the lord for not taking her baby. When she thought he was asleep, he heard her ask why he had taken her husband. 

Leonard is on crutches for months, and has to use a cane for over a year. He still gets phantom pain in the three consecutive places above his knee where the impact shattered his femur. He swears he can feel the screws that hold his right knee together sometimes. 

He sells his toy truck at a yard sale, and he hates getting in the car. He decides that he’s never going to leave state again. 

When he sleeps, he has nightmares about necks twisted at weird angles. 

David Andrew McCoy died of a cervical fracture received in a car accident on April 5th, 2236. He was 43 years old. He is survived by his parents, Lindsay and Matthew McCoy, his brothers Thomas McCoy and Henry McCoy, his sister Grace Jensen, his wife Eleanor McCoy, and their son Leonard McCoy. The family thanks everyone for their prayers and gifts, and appreciates all the support they have received during this difficult time. 

 

* * *

 

_ Kalisto is trying to call Spock now. Christine is coughing behind him. The balance is off without the second turbine, and Leonard curses.  _

_ Whatever, he’s flown worse.  _

_ He swallows, focuses on his job. The viewscreen is only revealing dark. They were somewhere between the thermosphere and the exsphere. If he could break the exosphere they would probably be able to contact the ship.  _

_ But he  _ can’t.  _ He can’t get enough height. He can’t get them out. He curses, shouts that he needs “-more power Hikaru!” _

_ “Leonard-” Scotty’s voice is behind him, but he doesn’t dare look back. “Yeh can do t’is, love.” He mutters next, and Leonard inhales.  _

_ Hikaru shouts something about more power and Leonard replies to do it do it do it Hikaru- _

_ His controls explode, and Leonard screams _

 

* * *

 

_ 21 years old _

He would have walked to ole miss if it meant not getting in a vehicle. He hated them  _ hated them- _

He wanted to be a doctor, but honestly? It wasn’t interesting him much.

He didn’t know what to do. Everything felt so…  _ lackluster.  _ So, he did the  _ reasonable  _ thing. 

He told the school he was taking a year off, and he went away. He thought about leaving the country, but that meant boarding a shuttle. So he just hitchhiked around the country, closing his eyes and braving trucks and buses and cars

It was months later when he met Jocelyn.

Jocelyn was “running” too, taking a break from law school. She was sweet, pretty. 

She got him on a shuttle again. 

It was a trick, really. She tricked him into one. 

He was panicking the whole time, but it was a start, 

 

* * *

 

_ Everything hurt, it was a haze. _

_ He was 9 again, in the car. Fuck, not his dad, not his dad not his- _

_ It hurt. It hurt really bad. _

_ Not his dad- not him- not- _

_ “Love, please! We need ya!” _

_ No.  _

_ No you don’t. _

_ Dad. _

 

* * *

 

_ 26 years old _

He  _ never  _ should have trusted her. 

Jocelyn was taking everything. Had taken everything. Half his cash, his  _ whole damn world- _

Joanna. She’d taken Joanna. 

He felt sick, sicker than anything. He was running again, hitchhiking around the country trying to figure out what the hell he’s supposed to do. He ended up… 

The house he’d found was abandoned, right on the edge of a steep drop off. Leonard remembered being five, flying. 

He climbs to the top of the house.

He jumps.

He wakes up again in the back of someone’s personal shuttle, flying through the ravine he jumped in. 

“Your one lucky kid.” says the voice of the old man who saved him. “Why’d you do that?”

He ends up living with the old man (he never gets his name) for a month. Then the old man dies, and leonard feels nothing.

The old man leaves him his shuttle.

 

* * *

 

_ He opened his eyes. Scotty was panicking over him.  _

_ “Sorry.” He croaked, then got up. Kalisto was in the pilot’s seat, trying to break to the exosphere again. Scotty kissed his head, and Kalisto slid over.  _

_ Leonard sat down. He gripped what remained of the controls, then swallowed. He closed his eyes, resettled himself. He opened his eyes, and he pulled and he pushed and- _

_ Let it never be said that he couldn’t fight, even with a machine. The shuttle wanted to go left, he made it go right.  _

_ He remembered the old man for a moment, playing those damn records on repeat. Trying to teach Leonard to live.  _

_ Asshole. Leonard missed him sometimes. He only found out much later- a distant relation, estranged great-uncle or something. His name was Leonard too. His dad had loved his uncle. _

_ Leonard H. McCoy the second, son of David and Elenor and by god he was going to save these people. _

 

* * *

 

_ 27 years old _

He taught himself how to fly. 

Then he got on another shuttle, and they wouldn’t let him fly. He hated that. He hated being on anything he couldn’t control. So he went to hide in the bathroom, so he wouldn’t have to see. They dragged him out again, forced him into a seat.

The kid next to him had wildly blue eyes. He would learn later that his name was Jim and  _ damn  _ could that kid fly. They would be thicker than thieves, closer than brothers. He loved Jim, to a degree. 

He still starts out the friendship by throwing up on him.

Jim is kind of the catalyst- through him he meets Nyota, and Gaila, and Pavel, and Hikaru and Spock and- 

Montgomery Scott smiles at him across the cafeteria only a few days before the kobayashi maru. 

Leonard  _ soars. _

 

* * *

 

_ Now _

Leonard was still in sickbay, grumbling and letting Pavel wrap his hand. He’d burned it when the counsel exploded. Nyota was giving him a commendation, Jim had been by to see him. 

Christine would recover, and Ensign Kalisto was with Spock, probably geeking out about the frequencies they’d picked up on the planet below. Hikaru was calling his family in the bed next to him, and he heard Ben shout a thank you. 

Leonard grinned, let Pavel finish wrapping his hand. 

The date was April 5th, 2265, Leonard’s father had died today. 

His family made sure he survived it. 

He flew.

**Author's Note:**

> So this kinda struck a weird chord with me-  
> My dad lost HIS dad when he was 12. He still struggles with issues stemming from that. 
> 
> So my attempt here- it was to write a character with a sort of PTSD, who's trying to cope, who's failing to cope, and who's more affected in a more subtle way.   
> I hope he was realistic- like I said, this was weirdly personal to me 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed- Come see me on tumblr www.flamingbluepanda.tumblr.com
> 
> See ya guys


End file.
